Trout Canyon wildfire is 50 percent contained

Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2000 | 11:30 a.m.

Firefighters have kept the Trout Canyon wildland blaze near Mount Charleston from consuming more acreage, but U.S. Forest Service officials don't expect the fire -- 50 percent contained as of this morning -- to be declared contained until the end of the week.

The wildfire, believed to have started Thursday from a lightning strike, has scorched 878 acres, Forest Service officials said. The acreage was updated today from an estimated 675 after aerial mapping was done.

Fire crews battling flames on the eastern flank of Griffith Peak Monday night volunteered for a "coyote ugly," said U.S. Forest Service incident commander Tom Dean of Alaska, meaning they spent the night digging a line in the dirt to contain the blaze.

Crews have been creating fire breaks on the east and west sides of the fire, working their way toward the peak. "Then we'll attack the top," Dean said.

The terrain is so steep, crews have not been able to get ahead of the flames to protect the top of Griffith Peak, 30 miles west of Las Vegas. Once they can dig around the top of the fire, it will be contained, officials said.

"What's challenging about this fire is the terrain, the tinder-dry fuels, the rugged mountain peaks, the hot weather and the wind," Dean said.

The Midnight Suns hotshot crew from Alaska is expected to arrive today, bringing the total number of firefighters to almost 200, Dean said.

Once the crew members arrive at the command center, they will have a three-mile, 3 1/2-hour climb to the top of Griffith.

Protecting the 60 residences of Trout Canyon, west of the blaze, is the first priority, Dean said. While anything can happen in a wildfire, calmer winds helped quell the wall of flames that cleared much of Griffith Peak of pinyon and juniper pine trees on Saturday and Sunday. The fate of 3,000-year-old bristle cone pine trees on the ridgeline is still unknown.

So far there has been no serious injury from the fire, Dean said. An A-Star helicopter, made for ferrying tourists on scenic rides, delivered yellow nets full of bottled drinking water and food to the crews between trips dumping 100-gallon buckets of water on the flames.

But the extremely dry brush and trees pose a continuing threat from more fires this summer, said U.S. Forest Service firefighter Lee Nelson, an eight-year veteran of battling flames in the Spring Mountain National Recreation Area.

On a scale from 0 to 300 -- 300 listed as the wettest condition -- 120 is considered an extreme fire danger, Nelson said. "We are now at 55," he noted. "I can't believe that. I've never seen it that low."

Helicopter pilot John Sowell, a 17-year flier, said he had battled six other wildland blazes all over Nevada this past week. But Trout Canyon's fire presented the biggest challenge as far as rugged back country.

"You can't appreciate the rugged terrain until you fly over it," Sowell said.

For support staff like Bud Rotroff of North Pole, Alaska, Southern Nevada's heat took some adjustments. Rotroff said his job is to supply maps, information and equipment to those on the fire line.

"We're almost halfway there," Rotroff said as the sun set Monday and the air above 6,000 feet began to cool. "And we're getting used to the heat."